At this moment, Speirs arrived, breathless. He managed to blurt out to Dike, “I’m taking over.” Sergeant Lipton and the others filled him in. He barked out orders, 2d platoon this way, 3d platoon that way, get those mortars humping, all-out with those machine-guns, let’s go. And he took off, not looking back, depending on the men to follow. They did. “I remember the broad, open fields outside Foy,” Speirs wrote in a 1991 letter, “where any movement brought fire. A German 88 artillery piece was fired at me when I crossed the open area alone. That impressed me.” Standing at the site in 1991 with
...more
